So I've intended to start this for almost 10 months now. Can I say procrastination?? Well, really I think it's a little more than that, but that's a good enough reason for now. : )
So did I say 10 months???? For real! St. Patrick's Day will mark the 10 month anniversary of my open heart surgery! What's really crazy about that is that I don't think I've ever really acknowledged that it really happened to me. Anyway - I'll deal with that later! Initially, I want to record some of my memories from this journey. It has been quite an experience. I regret that I didn't write along the way, but I realize that I just wasn't ready to put it to paper. The story actually begins 16 months ago...
November 2009
So, after being on steroids constantly for 12 years, numerous other strong asthma meds, and still finding myself in and out of the doctor's office on a regular basis, it's easy to understand that my uncontrolled asthma had become my way of life. It was simply "the way it was" for me. I wasn't at all negative about it and I really didn't feel cheated or limited anymore. I was past those thoughts. I knew how to handle the exacerbations and I just dealt with it. Somehow that didn't make being in the hospital any easier for me. November of 2009 was particularly rough. I had bronchitis followed by H1N1, and then another round of sinus/lung infections. I was hospitalized for low oxygen levels & not being able to fight the infections on my own. My hospitalist was Dr. Woody & she changed my life. She was the first doctor to ever tell me that I was not okay the way things were going. She insisted that my life could and should be better. And that I deserved to be well. She referred me to a pulmonologist for further testing.
January-February 2010
Dr. Woody referred me to Dr. Thompson a great pulmonologist. I went to him for the first time in January 2010. He agreed that I should be able to have a much better quality of life. He ordered a full day of testing at the hospital. They did everything from labwork to GI scans & CTs. Every test that he ordered came back negative. He was at a loss & I felt crushed. It may seem bizarre to hope a test to reveal a problem, but to me that meant hope for a treatment. Rather than simply increase the already high dosage of steroids I was on, he recommended I try one more thing. He asked if I would be willing to go to the Mayo Clinic or the National Jewish Lung Institute. I was completely caught off guard. I had spent so many years coping & convincing myself that I was just fine the way I was that I never imagined I could be even close to the severity of people that go to places like that. I was not that sick? He said they spend their funding listening to hoof beats and looking for zebras rather than horses. Was Dr. Thompson saying I could be a zebra? That all this time, what I thought was good enough really could be better...maybe it was worth another shot?? I trusted his recommendation and told him to make the call. I had no idea what was ahead of me, but at the time I just knew that God did. My life has been one miracle after another, so I had to believe that this too would be all for the good of His plan.
